At the most dramatic moments in sports, you can bet someone will dust off the old cliche: “You could not write a script like this.” They said it when Derek Jeter hit a walk-off single in his final Yankee Stadium at-bat. They said it when Auburn’s Chris Davis returned a missed field goal 109 yards to beat Alabama. And they said it when Kerry Strug stuck the landing on a busted ankle to win her country a gold.
But sometimes, the great moments clearly could be scripted. Because they basically already were.
In Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the heavily favored Purple Cobras held a four men to one advantage over the Average Joe’s. But the underdogs battled back to reach sudden-death overtime, with a blindfolded Vince Vaughn dodging Ben Stiller’s ball and blasting Stiller to score the upset victory.
On Aug. 7, ESPN paid homage to the film, for the third time re-branding one of its channels as “ESPN 8: The Ocho” for 24 hours of wild programming. It had the European TramDriver Championship. It had the IDEAL Electricians National Championship. And it proudly presented “the very first Slippery Stairs World Championship,” which is just five people trying to get up a set of cushioned stairs with gallons of lubricant poured on it.
But the crowning moment of the day was America’s Dodgeball Continental Cup: USA vs. Canada.
Just like the Average Joes of the Dodgeball movie, the U.S. faced long odds, falling behind 12 points to 2 at halftime of the 30-minute match. But like Vince Vaughan’s fictional character, the good guys in this real-life drama did not give up. They somehow battled back to 14-14 at the end of regulation. This forced one final set of winner-take-all overtime dodgeball.
Canada’s last Mountie standing against two Americans kept his country in the cup with a few incredible dodges. The Canadian fired an incredible throw at the shins of an American, who fell to the ground, made the catch, and gave America the glory.
Do you believe in miracles? “The Ocho” just showed us one.
—By Jason Russell
